Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 2013

By Steve Kiggins

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The daughter of Sean Dent, who
earned the nickname “The Prince of
Pilfer” during a brilliant playing career
in which he helped lead the UW men’s
team to a pair of trips to the NCAA
Tournament, is regarded as one of the
Cowgirls’ finest recruits in Joe Legerski’s
10 seasons as head coach, a dynamic
leader who blends smarts and skills.

Sort of like, well, her dad.

“I’ve learned almost everything about
basketball from him, especially since we
both play the same position,” Marquelle
says. “What he’s taught me is pretty
much what I do.”

It should come as no surprise, then,
that the fresh-faced point guard is a
remarkable passer with quick hands.
Though a capable scorer—she averaged
12.1 points per game during her senior
season at Regis Jesuit High in Aurora,
Colo.—Dent earned her spot as one of
Colorado’s top prep players by displaying
the same attributes that made her father
one of the best players in UW history.

As the floor general for Cowboy teams
headlined by Fennis Dembo and Eric
Leckner, Sean Dent established UW
career records for assists (502, including
a single-season record 183 in 1986-87)
and steals (249, including a single-season
record 93 in 1985-86) during the program’s
most recent heyday, a three-year
stretch that included 74 victories, highlighted
by 1987 tournament wins over
Virginia and UCLA.

In leading the Raiders to a 22-5
record during her senior season—Regis
Jesuit advanced to the state semifinals
in Colorado’s largest classification—
Marquelle Dent averaged 8.5 assists and
4.1 steals per game to earn first-team all-state
accolades.

“I think Marquelle has some of the same
tendencies as her dad. But she’s going to
set her own path, there is no doubt. She
is her own person,” says Legerski, who became the school's winningest coach when the Cowgirls beat Pepperdine on Nov. 24. “She understands the game, she is
a leader on the court, she knows who to
get the basketball to, and she wins. When
you put that together, along with her personality,
we knew we needed to have her
in our program.”

They knew for a while, too. As a
youngster, Marquelle was a regular at
Cowgirl basketball camps—Legerski
says she first caught his eye as a seventhgrader—
before the Dents moved from
Laramie to the Denver area prior to her
freshman season.

Though Dent was heavily recruited
by schools across the West, including
UW’s Mountain West Conference rivals
Colorado State and New Mexico, Dent
says she always wanted to return to
Laramie and play for the Cowgirls.

Twenty-four years after Sean Dent last
donned the brown and gold, Marquelle
made her UW debut against Dakota
Wesleyan in an October exhibition game
inside the Arena-Auditorium. She’s not
shying away from her father’s legacy,
either: Marquelle wears the same number,
10, as he did during his playing days.

“I had other schools recruiting me,
but this one just always stuck to my
heart,” says Dent, who was in attendance
at the Double-A on the night UW
won the Women’s National Invitation
Tournament in 2007, the crowning
achievement in Legerski’s coaching
tenure. “As soon as I came here on my
visit, I just felt like I should be here.”
So does Legerski.

“There was only one place for Marquelle
ever to be—and she is here,” the coach
says. “And we’re just excited that
Marquelle is part of this Cowgirl basketball
program, and we know she’s going to
do amazing things in her time here.”